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Dessert

Prune Mould

A sweet mould made from soaked prunes, sugar, lemon rind, sherry, gelatine, and cochineal, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Prune Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Soak the prunes overnight in water.

  2. Add sugar and lemon rind, cover, and simmer gently until soft.

Make the set syrup

  1. Strain off the syrup and dissolve the gelatine in it.

  2. Add the sherry and cochineal for color.

  3. Stir the prunes and add them along with some of the kernels.

Mould and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a wet mould.

  2. Serve garnished with whipped cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Prunes
Provide the main fruit body, sweetness and soft texture once cooked.
Gelatine
Sets the syrup so the mixture holds its shape when unmoulded.
Sherry
Adds aromatic flavour and a touch of acidity to the syrup.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps draw flavour from the prunes and rind.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine in the strained syrup. Gelatine must dissolve fully in warm liquid before the mixture cools, or it will set unevenly and leave a grainy or weak mould. Add the sherry after the syrup has cooled slightly so its aroma is not lost to heat.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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